Tryst
by APrettyPossum
Summary: The first encounter begins with a scoff. WoT femslash. [Liandrin/Katerine]


**Notes:** Who needs more Aes Sedai cat fights? You do! We all do. I wanted to see some downright bitch-slapping pettiness play out in the series, but I'm content writing it instead. This assortment of one-shots starts before the beginning of WoT. The last bit occurs at the end.

Language and sexuality warning. AMOL spoilers, along with a few others about the Black and Red Ajahs that are revealed in earlier books. Read, enjoy, and review!

* * *

**Tryst**

The first encounter begins with a scoff.

The next ends in a frenzy of snarling lips and seething insults, dignified Aes Sedai degrading themselves like spoiled teenagers vying for the same prize.

They are forcibly removed from each other's company: dragged to opposite corners of the Red Quarters where they simultaneously declare they'll take a private penance for their transgressions, though neither does.

* * *

That two sisters of the Red snap at one another like starving wolves is the talk of the Tower for weeks (until some Green hussy runs off to marry an Illianer dockworker) and the higher-ups among the Black laugh themselves silly in furtive meetings. The women are Sisters of the same Ajah in more ways than one- neither has yet reached that startling realization- but, _oh_, how it will rankle them both if they learn.

* * *

Liandrin's delicate eyebrows flatten into a straight line of rage despite the repetitive echo of Katerine's words. This scene has played out before, but never so openly or violently. They're alone together in the Red Quarters this time, no Jezrail to pull her fellows apart in a fit of nervousness.

Much like the last confrontation, they reflect the other's stance: a rigid posture of clenching jaws and bloody shawls draped too consciously across shoulders. They glare contemptuously, half grateful and half fearful that the other Reds have retired for the evening.

"Wilder whore," Katerine hisses. "I can hear it in your words, acting so high and mighty. Do you think you're the Amyrlin Seat, or are you hiding your accent because you're ashamed?"

Liandrin closes the gap between them in two swift steps, skirts slashing through the air. _(Finger strikes sternum, feeling a heartbeat pounding beneath the bone like a war drum.) _She presses so deeply into the smooth flesh that her nail cracks faster than her equanimity.

"I am _not_ a wilder, you disgusting cow," she spits back.

She shoves Katerine to the wooden table where so many Sisters take their midday tea, falling atop her enemy as the taller Sister's knees bend around the circular edge. One of Katerine's elbows hits the table with a thump as her other hand blindly grabs at rows of dark blonde braids. She pulls her attacker down with a grimace until her back thuds against the oak surface and Liandrin's weight presses her flat.

_(They abhor losing control. They want authority, they want power. Above all, they want dominance.)_

There is a beat _(heavy breathing, arching backs)_ before their lips crash together, tongues meeting and hands clinging to fabric for only an instant, until Katerine tosses Liandrin from her chest with an undignified grunt. The shorter woman lands with an angry huff on the polished floor, rising into a defensive crouch as if expecting an Aiel to burst from the ceiling and strike her dead.

Katerine wipes her mouth with the back of her hand as she sits upright, and scoffs, "Slut."

_(It takes all of her self-control not to pounce on the fallen Taraboner and tear off her clothing. Liandrin makes her blood boil like no one else, beautiful doll's face permanently painted in a mask of displeasure.)_

"What does that make you," her voice rises in pitch, "you hypocritical bitch?"

Katerine leaves in a rush, long black hair flowing gracefully behind her, and slams the carved door without answering or looking back.

* * *

As she stalks through the Dining Hall, Katerine locks eyes with Liandrin, fingertips itching for a fatal _angreal_ _(courtesy of the Great Lord, of course)_ instead of the tray full of breakfast rolls and spiced porridge. The other Red's piercing eyes smirk over the rim of her teacup and she leans to whisper intimately to the woman at her left, Jeaine Caide, who responds with a chuckle as rosebud lips brush her earlobe.

_They're fucking_, thinks Katerine, fury boiling in her gut. _That slut's fucking a Green, of all things._

_What does it matter?_ Liandrin can screw the whole Tower for all Katerine Alruddin cares. _(So she tells herself with every passing step.)_ Her envy rises until her appetite dissipates, but she glares at the attractive Domani Green sitting beside her prey until Jeaine mutters into her bowl through pursed lips.

_She's mine,_ Katerine's dark-eyed glower growls_._ She stomps away without hearing the exchange.

* * *

"I do love making simple-minded admirers jealous," Liandrin whispers. "But this is just too easy."

"Using me again, dear Liandrin?" Jeaine smiles. "I'm hardly the ideal stand-in for this sort of operation."

"She's too stupid to consider your preferences."

"So it seems." She frowns beneath the passing Red's penetrating gaze. "Though now you've made me a target."

"Oh, grow up, Jeaine. She's nothing."

_(Thank the Dark Lord for removing the Three Oaths and returning the liberating freedom of dishonesty.)_

There is a niggling fear in Liandrin's stomach worming through her guts like the slum diseases from her childhood. She'd dreamed of Katerine's long fingers and brutal kisses that left her lips more swollen than usual. Not a nightmare- it had been so good and so wrong and so unforgiving- but it haunts her waking thoughts as persistently as a splinter left untended.

She sets her teacup down with a _clink_, and doesn't touch the remainder of her now-cold breakfast.

* * *

"Are you going to eye me like a poor man in a whorehouse each time we cross paths, Katerine?"

"Do you put your lips on everything that moves, Liandrin?"

Katerine looms over her, arms crossed haughtily beneath her breasts like a spoiled princess surveying last season's wardrobe. Her mouth curls into a lascivious grin.

"You'd certainly enjoy that, wouldn't you?"

"Not as much as you would."

Liandrin's head lolls to one side as if she's bored with the company and conversation. They stand outside of her private room, and she's trapped between the door and a barrage of insufferable banter. She sighs melodramatically to cover her discomfort, "Your obsession with me is trying my patience. First breakfast, now a late night visit? I'll have to report you to the Highest if it doesn't stop."

_(The Highest, who would fuck either one of them in a second if afforded the opportunity, has always favored pretty blondes. Liandrin would certainly win that gamble, though they'd both have to pay in some form or fashion. No one escapes unscathed when dealing with Galina.)_

The raven-haired Sister leans down, breath ghosting across Liandrin's face, taunting and tantalizing, and says, "Make me."

Suddenly the tone of the argument shifts like the flow of a battle. _(It is always a fight with them.) _So many methods for waging war exist, and they tacitly decide that renewing their screaming match is both ineffective and undesirable. _Winning_ implies something else now.

_(The handle turns- it's black as pitch and family secrets inside. Neither one expects the invitation, but there it stands.)_

"Come," Liandrin purrs.

"_Make me_," she repeats, staring hungrily beneath hooded eyes.

Looping a curved finger around the sash at Katerine's waist, Liandrin murmurs, "I will."

* * *

When they cross paths in corridor the following morning, their eyes gloss over in mutual invisibility.

One sucks tender lips into her teeth when she rounds the corner, tugging her hair across her neck and shoulders to cover splotchy bite marks. She glares daggers at a squat serving maid, as if daring the old woman to ask how an Aes Sedai received such savage markings, until the crone hobbles off in the opposite direction with her laundry basket in tow.

The other idly rubs a bruising wrist, so distracted by her memories that she doesn't notice an approaching novice until the child is directly behind her. Surprised, she explodes into a ferocious tongue-lashing that leaves the girl trembling and teary-eyed.

* * *

They meet nearly every night in one private room or another _(and once in the Great Library's Third Depository, though they were cut short by a nosy Brown wandering between the shelves)_ but they never plan their rendezvous in advance.

Katerine is marginally stronger in the One Power _(Obey me, her arrogant face screams. Submit.)_ but for all of her aggression, she isn't the one who instigates the violence between them. Liandrin drives five filed claws into a shoulder blade until lines as crimson as the shawl that hides them appear in tidy rows. Her other hand works furiously between the legs of the younger Red, fingers circling hard and fast. Her victim half-shrieks in pain, aroused and furious, until sharp teeth bite her lower lip into silence. It sends her over the edge. Katerine's eyes water as she orgasms, and as Liandrin giggles maliciously under her breath.

_She always smells like cherry blossoms,_ thinks Liandrin, biting down harder to quell the thought. _(If anyone can will away the sentimentality and affection from sex, it's the petite Taraboner.) _Nothing gives her more pleasure than giving pain to another and, though she is loath to admit, receiving it in turn. They are well-suited in that regard.

"You bitch," gasps Katerine, pulling Liandrin's nude form closer in her lap. Her striped back rests gingerly against her headboard, sweat and minuscule droplets of blood staining the wood. "Heal me."

"No."

Katerine ruthlessly yanks a fistful of dangling braids to the pillows, relishing Liandrin's shocked face as her head snaps backwards. She pins the smaller woman down, left hand around her throat, right hand tracing the curve of her breast. Her back burns terribly, but she smiles into the sting.

"Why?" asks Katerine, lips sliding to a lonely collarbone. She notes with gratification the two fists balling around the fabric of her bedsheets as if clinging to the reigns of a runaway horse. The blonde simpers beneath her attention- the beginning of low moans form deep in the back of her throat.

Gentle fingers glide up to Katerine's left hand, squeezing her grip tighter around the graceful neck.

"You're my plaything," Liandrin whispers, pressing up into the warm body that pins her to the mattress. "No one else can have you."

_A mark of ownership?_

For a long moment, Katerine is grateful that her face is occupied elsewhere. She is completely overwhelmed by the admission of emotional attachment, twisted though it may be. She's told herself for weeks that her fascination with Liandrin was purely physical _(she tastes sugary sweet and moans so beautifully in bed)_ but the tingle of sensation she feels in her stomach when the other woman comes is devastating.

(Her lips pulls away from the body writhing against her tongue. Brown eyes lock together.)

"I belong to no one," Katerine sneers, shoving vicious fingers deep inside her bedmate, left hand tightening around her neck. "Especially you."

Liandrin chokes out a groan of pleasure and pain, biting her bottom lip as she whimpers.

Still, she lowers to kiss her, tongue warm and wet, with all the sensuality of a longtime lover. Katerine decides when Liandrin is screaming her name _(so loudly the ward might not contain it)_ that she'll allow her spend the night this time instead of issuing the usual command to leave.

_(She recognizes that some small portion of her heart will be crushed if Liandrin, who clings desperately to Katerine's forearms as she quivers, refuses.)_

The Taraboner exhales contentedly, braids splayed behind her on the pillows, then reaches for the stockings that lie in a heap on the tiled floor. Katerine grabs her extended arm and says, "I doubt you'll be able to walk after that."

Liandrin frowns _(she finds it difficult to look into Katerine's eyes- as dark and deadly as a knife in the shadows)_ but asks, "Is that an invitation?"

"Perhaps," Katerine lazily shrugs, willing herself not to flinch at her smarting back. "I may want you again later tonight."

Liandrin tosses back her head to laugh until Katerine's stomach drops. She thinks she's made a grievous mistake; she's let her weakness show. She's lost the battle.

"And you think _I'm_ possessive, Katerine?"

With a final snort Liandrin lays back down, searching the face of the other Red. Her arms hug around her form protectively, curling into a loose ball. She is unaware that she shivers.

_(Their heartbeats pulse in their ears, suddenly self-conscious. This is unmarked territory.)_

"Roll over and stop talking," Katerine mumbles. "You're not allowed to speak from this point on unless you're screaming."

Miraculously, and with another soft laugh, Liandrin complies. She takes the unsure hand resting cautiously on her hip and pulls it up to her breasts, scooting closer into the warmth of Katerine's front. They fall asleep pressed together.

Late in the night, the Taraboner wakes from a nightmare and weeps in silence, breathing evenly despite the tears _(she cannot wake Katerine)_. She knows wonderful things will come to her in the Great Lord's service, but sometimes his timing conflicts atrociously with the thing she most wants.

It may be heretical, but for once she has no desire to obey orders.

* * *

The following day Liandrin disappears to Fal Dara.

The other Reds notice Katerine's increasing hostility and rancor, but say nothing.

* * *

Stripes across Katerine's back crisscross with the five pink lines gifted to her so long ago. She wears a complicated weave, gliding through the reflection of the Tower like a ghost. She cannot afford to be distracted.

_(And yet she wonders why Liandrin never came back for her. They could have ruled the Black Sisters together. They could have-)_

There is a girl in white, a spear, and a blackness as unyielding as her Ajah.

* * *

It is difficult to rub the chaffed skin beneath the collar, but Lia manages after a bit of practice. She lays on her pallet in the kennel, watching the moonlight reflect on the silver chain. There was a time when strong fingers danced the line of pleasure and pain along her neck instead of a ring of cold metal, and mocking words disguised something akin to love.

_Or hate_, she thinks. _They are one and the same._

She cannot be sure. It was years ago, when she went by a longer name. Though her turbulent relationship with Katerine was hazily defined at best, the woman once called Liandrin often wonders how differently things could have been if she'd returned for her former lover instead of the other twelve.

_(They wasted so much time as enemies.)_

Liandrin regrets that it began with a scoff.


End file.
